Wine Specs
Harvest Date
September 21-23, 2023
Bottling Date
June 6, 2024
2023 Select Vineyards Merlot
Wine Profile
Tasting Notes
A medley of aromas ranging from herbaceous sage brush to sweet cherry nibs and rich cocoa lead the way on this 2023 Merlot. The palate showcases full, round notes of plum, fig and chocolate to make this an easy drinking wine made to pair with traditional classics like Margherita pizza or bruschetta.
Vineyard Notes
The winter of 2022 set up less-than-ideal projections for 2023; however, the 2023 growing season at Hester Creek was everything that one could hope for in producing outstanding grapes for our wines. Growing Degree Days (GDD) reached 1835, making it the highest accumulation of GDDs for the months of April through August. Harvest began earlier than usual on August 25th with Pinot Noir and ended on October 1st with Cabernet Sauvignon. This compacted season became a story of quality over quantity and allowed our winemaking team to create new wines for our portfolio, craft variations of existing wines and use techniques like whole cluster pressing on 90% of our white wines and allowing for extended maceration periods on our red wines. Overall, the Hester Creek wine coming out of the 2023 season is an example of excellence rooted in the South Okanagan terroir.
Winemaker Notes
The Merlot grapes for this 2023 vintage were hand harvested from four vineyards in the South Okanagan with the majority coming from our estate property. They were hand sorted by our cellar team then destemmed and transferred as whole berries to our Italian Ganimede fermentation tanks where they were cold soaked for two days before undergoing a gentle maceration. After pressing, the resulting wine was then aged in a combination of French and American oak for eight months and bottled on June 6, 2024.
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